Spoons go dark.

[Blue Jam]

Sports pubs are designed for people who (again, shock) like sport

Yes, but those "SKY SPORTS SHOWN HERE" signs aren't a mark of a good sports pub- they're more of a LEGEND GARY alert. If you want to watch sport in a pub you can find a better one by looking for one which isn't plastered in big plastic signs.

[holyzombiejesus]

Yeah, guess that's true. On the very very rare occasion that I've gone to watch football in a pub, they just had the screens on with no commentary and the juke box turned up instead.

[Utter Shit]

It wqould be nice if sports pubs had to have a little football flag on the outside so non sports fans didn't accidentally go into one and than dither about wondering whether to stay.

As Blue Jam says, they have very visible "SKY SPORTS SHOWN HERE" logos and billboards all over the place to draw people in. It costs a fortune for pubs to show Sky Sports, so any that do subscribe advertise the fact as heavily as possible to get the punters in.

[Utter Shit]

Yes, but those "SKY SPORTS SHOWN HERE" signs aren't a mark of a good sports pub- they're more of a LEGEND GARY alert. If you want to watch sport in a pub you can find a better one by looking for one which isn't plastered in big plastic signs.

Sorry but this is just snobbery. Any pub that has Sky Sports will have those signs, because they need to advertise the fact to justify having the license. There will be very few pubs, if any, that show sports but don't advertise that fact. And yeah, some sports pub will have a lot of cunts in, same as any other type of pub. But to dismiss them all as being like that is just snobbery and not based in reality.

[Blue Jam]

Just my experience- round here the best pubs for watching sport are just nice old boozers which happen to have screens. Also The Pear Tree, with its beer garden and massive outdoor screen which is great for watching Wimbledon in the summer. They might have a little sticker on the door or something like a list of all the games they're showing on a blackboard, but not a huge plastic sign- they still manage to look like old-fashioned boozers. I guess for these places it feels like they're nice pubs which happen to show sport, rather than places you can watch sport which happen to sell (usually weak and pissy) beer.

They always have that little pint glass in the corner of the screen though- something I learned today:

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/668952/why-pub-TVs-have-pint-glass-in-corner-screen

Sky Sports uses the pint glass icon in the corner of the screen in order to crack down on landlords who do not have the right subscription.

Only pubs with the correct commercial subscription to Sky Sports will have the special symbol on their TV screens.

Some landlords might be tempted to try their luck by showing Sky Sports in their pub with the usual home subscription, which is relatively cheap.

But if the landlords do take the risk then it is easy for inspectors to catch them out because there will not be a pint glass in the corner of the screen.

Sky Sports use the pint glass icon to make sure landlords have the right subscription.

Scheming publicans might also be tempted to put a small pint glass sticker on their TV screens but that won't work either.

The amount in the pint glass used by Sky Sports changes every day so that inspectors can tell if the landlord has the right subscription.

I knew why the pint glass was there, but I didn't know about the sneaky sticker trick, or the sneaky varying amount in the pint glass- pub sport arms race!

How much does it cost to show Sky then? It must be a lot if they go to the trouble of sending inspectors round.

[imitationleather]

How much does it cost to show Sky then? It must be a lot if they go to the trouble of sending inspectors round.

I can't remember the figure, but it's an absolutely huge amount.

I knew about the pint glass on the screen but I don't recall there ever being a different amount. Is that a new thing?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Not really, unless it's a paid stream (GenieTV lads, it's brilliant) you'll usually end up with a stream that crashes every five minutes and is crap quality even when it's working ok. Most people don't know how to get a good quality stream, and Sky costs a fortune - so for a lot of people, going down the pub to watch sport is the best, or possibly the only, option. And (shock) a lot of people like the atmosphere of a good sports pub.

Sports pubs are designed for people who (again, shock) like sport - if you dislike that sort of atmosphere and want a quiet pub to read or sit in silence staring at your beer, you're in the wrong place. There are plenty of pubs that offer quiet (as already mentioned, most Spoons are like that and the drinks are cheap too), so why you'd go to a pub which is marketing a different sort of experience and then complain about it is beyond me, just the same as anyone who wanders into a goth pub and complains that they aren't showing Southampton/Burnley on a Monday night.

I agree, I prefer going out to watch football. I enjoy going to pubs so this way I get to do both.

[ASFTSN]

I could have sworn I've seen that pint symbol on TV in people's decidedly non-commerical living rooms too.

Maybe I just spend too much time in pubs.

[Blue Jam]

I knew about the pint glass on the screen but I don't recall there ever being a different amount. Is that a new thing?

It looks like it was introduced to get around the sticker trick. Apparently they also move to different corners of the screen and the colour also changes.

I'm going to be obsessively looking at them now...

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Sam Smith's are fucking horrible. It's just like I imagine it was like when everywhere was a Watney Combe Reid and they just had Red Barrel.

Utter nonsense, there are far too many excellent ones to say such a thing. Many look after the best preserved and historic pubs in the country, have ornate original features, fires going, often getting lavish restoration jobs. The Angel in Leeds still feels like you can imagine it would be centuries ago. That doesn't mean anything to you, fine, but when pubs are recklessly ripped up and replaced by bland shit it matters to me and many others.

Give me a Sam Smiths pub any day of the week over a fucking Greene King identikit pub, you know the ones with blackboards in gold frames advertising that shock- they serve bottled beer and spirits here!!! And hot food!

Sam Smiths isn't going to be everyone's bag but you don't have to like them to recognise how important they are.

[Blue Jam]

A lot of the Sam Smiths pubs in London are nice and old and beautiful, like the Cittie of Yorke and the Cheshire Cheese, but I've had such horrible service and crap food in them that I've vowed never to go back all the same. I'm just glad I can now go to the ones in Durham and Edinburgh instead- especially as a cold Sam Smiths' Organic Chocolate Stout is one of the nicest things you can drink on a hot day.

On that score, Wetherspoons also do a good job of preserving some nice old buildings. I know they've been criticised for buying old music venues so they can install their musicless pubs, but tbh I'm cigs about that- I like pubs with no music, and I've never been too keen on bands in pubs...

[Sebastian Cobb]

Just my experience- round here the best pubs for watching sport are just nice old boozers which happen to have screens. Also The Pear Tree, with its beer garden and massive outdoor screen which is great for watching Wimbledon in the summer. They might have a little sticker on the door or something like a list of all the games they're showing on a blackboard, but not a huge plastic sign- they still manage to look like old-fashioned boozers. I guess for these places it feels like they're nice pubs which happen to show sport, rather than places you can watch sport which happen to sell (usually weak and pissy) beer.

They always have that little pint glass in the corner of the screen though- something I learned today:

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/668952/why-pub-TVs-have-pint-glass-in-corner-screen

I knew why the pint glass was there, but I didn't know about the sneaky sticker trick, or the sneaky varying amount in the pint glass- pub sport arms race!

How much does it cost to show Sky then? It must be a lot if they go to the trouble of sending inspectors round.

Depends on the size of the place iirc, but it can easily cost you a grand a month.

[Paul Calf]

Just my experience- round here the best pubs for watching sport are just nice old boozers which happen to have screens. Also The Pear Tree, with its beer garden and massive outdoor screen

The Pear Tree Edinburgh? On W Nicolson Street?

I used to visit Edinburgh a lot and I loved that pub. On a sunny afternoon with a pint of cider it's one of the best places in the world.

[Utter Shit]

Might be a myth, but years ago the pint glass in the corner of the screen would fill up over time during live sport, and the rumour was that this was banned because it was interpreted as a sneaky business tactic encouraging drinkers to drink at a faster rate than normal. Wouldn't be surprised if it was true though, Burger King supposedly play commercial music that is slightly sped up to encourage patrons to eat and get out quicker.

[Paul Calf]

Might be a myth, but years ago the pint glass in the corner of the screen would fill up over time during live sport, and the rumour was that this was banned because it was interpreted as a sneaky business tactic encouraging drinkers to drink at a faster rate than normal.

Nah, it's to show to Sky inspectors that it's being shown on a commercial license.

Commercial licenses are about £30,000 a year, but the cost depends on the value of your business and premises.

[Utter Shit]

I'm not talking about the pint glass itself, which as you say is designed to prevent sneaky landlords from using a personal Sky account for their business at a fraction of the price, but the old thing it had where it would gradually fill up during games.

My old local in Brighton used to have a dodgy foreign hook-up. It was great for watching football as it meant you got the 3pm kick offs too, but what really made it was the sheer weirdness of the coverage. It was an Italian feed, and their football coverage was like a bad sketch show's exaggerated interpretation of what Sky Sports News is like - properly elderly male presenters and female presenters barely out of their teens with hilariously large tits which were bursting out of their tops like a [banned troll] comic. And then instead of adverts at half time, it had short highlights of ice hockey and basketball. Bizarre.

[imitationleather]

I used to watch Chinese broadcasts where the presenters wore Chelsea shirts.

[Utter Shit]

I watched a Russian feed of Leicester/Tottenham a couple of years ago which was the most Russian thing ever - though I couldn't make out most of the commentary obviously, I understood one bit where one commentator said "Drinkwater..." followed by a short silence, then the other commentator said "Drink vodka!" and then the two of them pissed themselves laughing.

[Blinder Data]

Utter nonsense, there are far too many excellent ones to say such a thing. Many look after the best preserved and historic pubs in the country, have ornate original features, fires going, often getting lavish restoration jobs. The Angel in Leeds still feels like you can imagine it would be centuries ago. That doesn't mean anything to you, fine, but when pubs are recklessly ripped up and replaced by bland shit it matters to me and many others.

Give me a Sam Smiths pub any day of the week over a fucking Greene King identikit pub, you know the ones with blackboards in gold frames advertising that shock- they serve bottled beer and spirits here!!! And hot food!

Sam Smiths isn't going to be everyone's bag but you don't have to like them to recognise how important they are.

Humphrey Smith appears to treat his workers like absolute shit though

But I suppose all of us will find ways to justify our consumerist pursual of the finer things in life, in this case cheap beer that's nice in pleasant pub surroundings.

[Blue Jam]

My old local in Brighton used to have a dodgy foreign hook-up.

I like those- they're much more fun than Sky...

[Paul Calf]

I'm not talking about the pint glass itself, which as you say is designed to prevent sneaky landlords from using a personal Sky account for their business at a fraction of the price, but the old thing it had where it would gradually fill up during games.

Did it really do that?

[Utter Shit]

I definitely have a memory of that being the case, but it was so long ago now it's possible that I heard the rumour and have built a false memory around it. Or possibly have just been lying about it to sound interesting for so long that I no longer know the difference between truth and lies.

[Uncle TechTip]

I imagine that having a social media presence is like advertising in general, sure you don't have to do it, but dare you risk leaving the market to your competitors? The suggestions around the use of data for other purposes seems much more realistic, to explain a sudden stop like that. What's the betting that a single presence on each platform will emerge some time later. Maybe it was too expensive to run a feed for each single pub. Who operated the accounts, would they risk letting each manager do it? What if one goes crazy off-message?

[Sebastian Cobb]

The place I've been going recently doesn't even have a telly.

They mostly play funk, soul and reggae on the stereo as well.

[imitationleather]

I like those- they're much more fun than Sky...

Unfortunately(?) the days of esoteric football coverage are gone. Now a foreign broadcast is either going to be NBC with Robbie Earle, Lee Dixon and Graeme Le Saux or BeIN with Andy Gray and Richard Keys, so it's basically exactly the same as the UK coverage.

[Paul Calf]

I definitely have a memory of that being the case, but it was so long ago now it's possible that I heard the rumour and have built a false memory around it. Or possibly have just been lying about it to sound interesting for so long that I no longer know the difference between truth and lies.

Ah-ha:

Sky Sports cannot enforce that all pubs buy the correct subscription. In addition to having a pint glass logo overlay, it also changes the amount in the pint glass every day–in game theory parlance, Sky Sports plays a mixed strategy. Inspectors know the amount to look for, and pub owners find it harder to circumvent the proper subscription.

https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-applied-why-is-there-a-pint-glass-in-the-corner-of-tvs-at-pubs/

So it might have been a variation on that tactic.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Never noticed the level changed.

Apparently the ruling on foreign subscribers means it's fine to use them but you can be done for trademark infringement on the on-screen logos, which is why some dodgy iptv outfits helpfully blur them out for you.

[Utter Shit]

Ah-ha:

https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-applied-why-is-there-a-pint-glass-in-the-corner-of-tvs-at-pubs/

So it might have been a variation on that tactic.

I reckon I've accidentally made it up, like a twat.

[idunnosomename]

Utter nonsense, there are far too many excellent ones to say such a thing. Many look after the best preserved and historic pubs in the country, have ornate original features, fires going, often getting lavish restoration jobs. The Angel in Leeds still feels like you can imagine it would be centuries ago. That doesn't mean anything to you, fine, but when pubs are recklessly ripped up and replaced by bland shit it matters to me and many others.

no the pubs do look good. but the beer is shite is my point. not only aren't there guest ales, there's not even anything resembling what I like. they only have one cask, don't they?

I shall never stoop to KEG! Onward, casketeers! Let us trek out into the great yonder to find a boozer with a more palatable selection of ales!

[NoSleep]

They only have one cask, don't they?

No.